ComputerWeekly: Market research firm Gartner now believes that companies will spend more on IT this year than previously predicted. In the first quarter, Gartner predicted an annual growth rate of 5.6 percent, but it has revised that forecast to 7.1 percent growth, for total sales of $3.67 trillion.

The company believes spending on public cloud computing services will grow particularly quickly -- 20 percent over the next five years -- but public cloud spending accounts for just 2 percent of all IT spending. Spending on computer hardware and enterprise software are also expected to increase significantly.